Are vaccines the light at the end of the tunnel?

[phoenix_dream]

14 hours ago, D C said:

 

 

Agreed on the optics vs benevolence.  I think it would be shortsighted to look at people in authority in any other way, 

 

A simple way to look at prioritization is to ask, "what is the problem we're trying to solve?".  I do hope that the answer in every case is that we're trying to prevent (or minimise) deaths due to covid. 

 

To twist it a bit, we can look at the 'plan' and ask, "Are we solving the problem by vaccinating group XXXX?"

 

While it's tempting to point a finger and say that the 'essential' healthy 20 year old grocery store cashier isn't 'deserving' of a vaccine, it's better to ask if the entire group of grocery store cashiers stands out as an at-risk demographic over other categories of people.

 

To analyse that a bit more, for every healthy 20 year old, there is a 60+ year old working the cashier job to earn extra income.  Demographically, the group is both at risk and not at risk if the goal is to prevent deaths.  In terms of essential-ness, it's a low-skill job that is easily filled, and self-checkouts are commonplace.  Aside from "we need to buy groceries" a quick glance suggests there is nothing about this particular group that justifies a need for special, immediate attention.   Prioritizing them because of their essentialness is nonsensical when we look at it that way.   They don't move to the bottom of the list per-se, we simply eliminate that group and find another way to analyse/categorise those people. 

 

 

I know we can analyze this to death and there is certainly no perfect answer, and logical reasons for a variety of approaches.  Did want to comment on one thing, cuz I guess I can't help myself🙂.  If we focus on vaccinating the most vulnerable (i.e., the 60+ year old working at the grocery store), then the issue of the virus spreading by the 20 year old to them is basically eliminated.  And I suspect you didn't mean anything against me by implying I said that a 20 year old grocery store clerk wasn't "deserving" of a vaccine.  Just to get my opinion on the record, I think everyone is deserving of a vaccine.  It is just a matter of what is the most practical priority of the doses that we have.

 

The more I think about this (and I think I need to start thinking about it less!), it seems like we had one of two top priorities - either prevent deaths, or keep the economy from crashing even more.  It seems to me that by and large we chose door #2.  One could argue against that and say that we are did choose option #1 by vaccinating long term care facilities in the first phase.  My cynical mind says that one is more about the optics.  All the news channels as well as statistics repeatedly (and rightly) identified those places as the places with the most deaths.  But if we really, truly, were working to prevent deaths as the top priority, the next phase would be those 60+ and those with serious health conditions.  That is unfortunately not the case.

[wrk2cruise]

NC announced yesterday that they have adjusted the groupings some.  They have divided essential workers into 2 groups, frontline and then others as defined by CDC.  Then they have divided each of these 2 groups into over 50 and older then under 50 and prioritized the over 50 groups first.

 

My MIL is in a long term care facility and will be vaccinated on Sunday. 

 

Next group is 75 and older and frontline essential workers 50 and older

 

I live in a 55+ community and a neighbor just reported that he got a message from the VA yesterday saying they were starting appointments for 75 and older and people with specific health issues and homeless.   He was able to get an appointment for Jan 5.

 

My only complaint is at 63 I'm last in line.  All students K-12 (over 16) and college students are before others 16-64.   The hospitalization demographics for NC indicate that ~20% are in the 50-64 age range.

 

Anybody interested in the details of the NC plan it can be viewed https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/vaccines

[UnorigionalName]

28 minutes ago, phoenix_dream said:

I know we can analyze this to death and there is certainly no perfect answer, and logical reasons for a variety of approaches.  Did want to comment on one thing, cuz I guess I can't help myself🙂.  If we focus on vaccinating the most vulnerable (i.e., the 60+ year old working at the grocery store), then the issue of the virus spreading by the 20 year old to them is basically eliminated.  And I suspect you didn't mean anything against me by implying I said that a 20 year old grocery store clerk wasn't "deserving" of a vaccine.  Just to get my opinion on the record, I think everyone is deserving of a vaccine.  It is just a matter of what is the most practical priority of the doses that we have.

 

The more I think about this (and I think I need to start thinking about it less!), it seems like we had one of two top priorities - either prevent deaths, or keep the economy from crashing even more.  It seems to me that by and large we chose door #2.  One could argue against that and say that we are did choose option #1 by vaccinating long term care facilities in the first phase.  My cynical mind says that one is more about the optics.  All the news channels as well as statistics repeatedly (and rightly) identified those places as the places with the most deaths.  But if we really, truly, were working to prevent deaths as the top priority, the next phase would be those 60+ and those with serious health conditions.  That is unfortunately not the case.

 

The difference is that retired people have the option of JUST FREAKING STAYING HOME and there is like no risk.

 

Young people need to work because 1) there are ESSENTIALS like food that need to happen. and 2) they don't have 40 years worth of savings to live off of, and they too want to retire at some point in their lives, though young people are more and more resigned to never being able to retire.

 

Basically, you are asking younger people who do not have the choice, to continue to work and continue to get sick and possibly die or more likely have a lifetime of consequences, just so you don't have to stay at home and can go cruise.

 

Basically, all the risk retired people have are of their own making.  Other than like nursing homes, which, as you may have noticed, is also in the first group.

[d9704011]

34 minutes ago, phoenix_dream said:

and I think I need to start thinking about it less!

I think you’re on to something there.

[D C]

22 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

NC announced yesterday that they have adjusted the groupings some.  They have divided essential workers into 2 groups, frontline and then others as defined by CDC.  Then they have divided each of these 2 groups into over 50 and older then under 50 and prioritized the over 50 groups first.

 

My MIL is in a long term care facility and will be vaccinated on Sunday. 

 

Next group is 75 and older and frontline essential workers 50 and older

 

I live in a 55+ community and a neighbor just reported that he got a message from the VA yesterday saying they were starting appointments for 75 and older and people with specific health issues and homeless.   He was able to get an appointment for Jan 5.

 

My only complaint is at 63 I'm last in line.  All students K-12 (over 16) and college students are before others 16-64.   The hospitalization demographics for NC indicate that ~20% are in the 50-64 age range.

 

Anybody interested in the details of the NC plan it can be viewed https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/vaccines

 

That makes absolutely no sense, especially if transmission is at all possible after being vaccinated.    

[D C]

50 minutes ago, phoenix_dream said:

I know we can analyze this to death and there is certainly no perfect answer, and logical reasons for a variety of approaches.  Did want to comment on one thing, cuz I guess I can't help myself🙂.  If we focus on vaccinating the most vulnerable (i.e., the 60+ year old working at the grocery store), then the issue of the virus spreading by the 20 year old to them is basically eliminated.  And I suspect you didn't mean anything against me by implying I said that a 20 year old grocery store clerk wasn't "deserving" of a vaccine.  Just to get my opinion on the record, I think everyone is deserving of a vaccine.  It is just a matter of what is the most practical priority of the doses that we have.

 

The more I think about this (and I think I need to start thinking about it less!), it seems like we had one of two top priorities - either prevent deaths, or keep the economy from crashing even more.  It seems to me that by and large we chose door #2.  One could argue against that and say that we are did choose option #1 by vaccinating long term care facilities in the first phase.  My cynical mind says that one is more about the optics.  All the news channels as well as statistics repeatedly (and rightly) identified those places as the places with the most deaths.  But if we really, truly, were working to prevent deaths as the top priority, the next phase would be those 60+ and those with serious health conditions.  That is unfortunately not the case.

Agreed!  

The 20 year old isn't undeserving, they're just undeserving of a priority spot at the front of the line.

The media has loved counting cases through this pandemic, far more than counting deaths, it seems.  Sadly, I think you're correct in that preventing deaths is not at the top of the list of goals to achieve with the vaccine.  

[D C]

25 minutes ago, UnorigionalName said:

 

The difference is that retired people have the option of JUST FREAKING STAYING HOME and there is like no risk.

 

Young people need to work because 1) there are ESSENTIALS like food that need to happen. and 2) they don't have 40 years worth of savings to live off of, and they too want to retire at some point in their lives, though young people are more and more resigned to never being able to retire.

 

Basically, you are asking younger people who do not have the choice, to continue to work and continue to get sick and possibly die or more likely have a lifetime of consequences, just so you don't have to stay at home and can go cruise.

 

Basically, all the risk retired people have are of their own making.  Other than like nursing homes, which, as you may have noticed, is also in the first group.

Stay home. Isolate.  Don't visit friends or family.  Don't do anything to enjoy your life that may involve interaction with others.  Essentially live like a hermit and suffer the physical and mental degradation, depression, and other issues that comes along with it.    Not exactly a trouble-free tradeoff, is it?

 

 

 

 

[UnorigionalName]

17 minutes ago, D C said:

Stay home. Isolate.  Don't visit friends or family.  Don't do anything to enjoy your life that may involve interaction with others.  Essentially live like a hermit and suffer the physical and mental degradation, depression, and other issues that comes along with it.    Not exactly a trouble-free tradeoff, is it?

 

 

 

 

 

Of course it's not trouble free.  No one is saying it's trouble free.

 

But it's an enviable situation for millions of young people.  It's a tradeoff a lot of young people would like to have right now.  Having economic security.  Not having to deal with crazy customers that don't follow guidelines and put everyone's health at risk.

 

The goal of the distribution of vaccines is to be morally fair.  Fair to everyone.  Fair to older people.  Fair to younger people.  

 

Young essential workers do not have the choice.  They have to work.

 

Retired people do have a choice.  They have the choice to stay home.  That's why they are lower in the queue.

 

Again, you are basically asking young people to sacrifice their health and their lives, so you can go meet up with friends and go cruise.

 

And you don't understand why there's not a huge segment of the population that would be outraged at this complete lack of empathy?

 

Basically why everyone called the baby boomers the "me generation"

 

Edited December 31, 2020 by UnorigionalName

[emmas gran]

For 9 months all we have done is grocery shopping my husband goes on Tuesday and me on Friday if we didn’t do this we would not go anywhere , We wear masks and disinfect trolleys before we use them there is not much else for us to look forward to at the moment so we make the most of chores along with shopping.

Every time either of us shops there is someone not wearing masks properly usually younger people 

[TeeRick]

There is now lots of discussion on this thread about vaccine prioritization and who gets the vaccine first.  That's OK of course.  But a few months back we did not even know if a vaccine was possible and that dominated our discussions here.  And mistrust of the vaccine efforts.   Now we have two approved in the US with 95% efficacy.  And three approved in the UK.  So we should be quite happy to have these discussions on prioritization.  And distribution. And slow roll out.  But at least we have something to move us forward.  Even if it takes months for some of us (including me) to qualify.  I will not worry about grocery clerks or any other group.  It will just lead to frustrations as nobody will ever agree what is the perfect order of prioritization.  I will wear masks, mostly stay home, and social distance until my number come up.  What else can I really do?  Others being protected from COVID actually also helps me in innumerable ways too.  Yes I would get vaccinated today if I could.  But I cannot.   By the way I am warming up to the UK idea of giving as many people as possible a first dose and getting at least partial protection of the population.

[TeeRick]

23 hours ago, cangelmd said:

We received our first batch of vaccine - Pfizer 975ish doses, minimum order - either on Dec 9th or 12th. We stored the flat pack of vials (kind of looked like one of those large flat square egg containers that holds 2-3 dozen eggs) in the -70 freezer actually in the lab because literally you cannot buy the small -70 freezers right now. All of our materials were removed and a lock was put on the freezer. They came in a cube shipping container surrounded by dry ice, not a lot different than the containers we get frozen plasma shipped in, just bigger about 2 feet on a side.

Remember we are a relatively small hospital, some of how people get signed up for vaccine would not work as well in a larger organization. The shots were planned to be given starting on Wed after we received the vaccine, so about 2 days. Employees including employed physicians went through employee health website to reserve an appt time. Employees were ranked by department according to level of risk (our larger umbrella health care system developed the consent forms and worked on the process for allocating vaccine, but that top down method only went so far) - with Covid ICU staff, ER, respiratory therapy going first. Contract physicians (that's me) and independent groups and members of med staff plus PAs and NPs seeing patients in the hospital were contacted by the Med Staff office and given appts through the med staff office. Also, our county public health dept partnered each hospital in town with a couple of rural hospitals within 2-3 hours drive and with units of EMS to provide vaccine to those persons.

So Day 1 was very frontline physician leaders and ICU nurses, respiratory therapists. Day 2 was ER and other hospital employees just beyond the absolute frontline. Day 3 was second line physicians, EMS and the outlying hospitals. In our state, all practicing physicians are eligible for vaccination sometime in the first wave.

At least that was the plan, 😏, first day they figured out instead of 5 doses in a vial there were 6, maybe 7 if you really worked at it, so  that threw the scheduling out of whack. By the end of day 1, they were calling up to get anyone who was scheduled on another day and to come on and use up the last few shots that day. The  outlying hospitals could only send a few people and I've lost track of how they are going to get vaccine to others there. EMS showed up both days 2 and 3.

All of this is only a problem in that you have to fill out several forms, get your shot, then be observed for at least 15 minutes for reactions and stay 6 feet apart for all of this. They took the large meeting space and put in multiple stations to get people registered, consented, vaccinated, observed, and get their card for the return shot and double check all the paperwork. It took about 30 minutes by Day 3.

They originally scheduled for 75 vaccinations a day over 6  days, but I think they were averaging about 125 per day, especially the first two days.

Overall, I think a large majority of the eligible MDs got vaccinated and nursing staff was running 40-50 %. Because of all the scheduling and observations and paperwork, they did not even try to cover night shift until the second week.

I think originally we were supposed to get an almost equal amount of Moderna, but Ive been off for the holiday and I haven't heard. Given the challenges in thawing, diluting and preparing the Pfizer vaccine without wasting any - no one wants to waste any - I think the hospitals with storage capacity will be the only places to get any significant orders of Pfizer in my state, and they may well have diverted all the Moderna to other places, at least that's what I would do if I was them. Last numbers I saw was roughly 128K doses sent to Al and only 25K dispensed - lots of reasons, reluctance to take the vaccine, lots of Covid and they aren't vaccinating within 90 days of diagnosis, pregnancy, severe allergies, etc. The holidays also have really slowed things down.

Next challenge, seems that your second exposure to the antigens have a fairly high likelihood of making you feel bad, so work teams have to split up just in case. My partner had Covid back in the summer, his first shot made him feel bad for about 12 hours, no fever, didn't miss work, just took Advil, but noticed that something was different. No severe allergic reactions here, allergic people are supposed to be observed for 30 minutes, not just 15.

Probably more than you wanted to know. What's that old military saying about the plan holding up when you encounter the enemy?

Thank you so much for the front line view.  All the detail is excellent!  Much appreciated!

[Tippyton]

On 12/30/2020 at 1:38 PM, cangelmd said:

We received our first batch of vaccine - Pfizer 975ish doses, minimum order - either on Dec 9th or 12th. We stored the flat pack of vials (kind of looked like one of those large flat square egg containers that holds 2-3 dozen eggs) in the -70 freezer actually in the lab because literally you cannot buy the small -70 freezers right now. All of our materials were removed and a lock was put on the freezer. They came in a cube shipping container surrounded by dry ice, not a lot different than the containers we get frozen plasma shipped in, just bigger about 2 feet on a side.

Remember we are a relatively small hospital, some of how people get signed up for vaccine would not work as well in a larger organization. The shots were planned to be given starting on Wed after we received the vaccine, so about 2 days. Employees including employed physicians went through employee health website to reserve an appt time. Employees were ranked by department according to level of risk (our larger umbrella health care system developed the consent forms and worked on the process for allocating vaccine, but that top down method only went so far) - with Covid ICU staff, ER, respiratory therapy going first. Contract physicians (that's me) and independent groups and members of med staff plus PAs and NPs seeing patients in the hospital were contacted by the Med Staff office and given appts through the med staff office. Also, our county public health dept partnered each hospital in town with a couple of rural hospitals within 2-3 hours drive and with units of EMS to provide vaccine to those persons.

So Day 1 was very frontline physician leaders and ICU nurses, respiratory therapists. Day 2 was ER and other hospital employees just beyond the absolute frontline. Day 3 was second line physicians, EMS and the outlying hospitals. In our state, all practicing physicians are eligible for vaccination sometime in the first wave.

At least that was the plan, 😏, first day they figured out instead of 5 doses in a vial there were 6, maybe 7 if you really worked at it, so  that threw the scheduling out of whack. By the end of day 1, they were calling up to get anyone who was scheduled on another day and to come on and use up the last few shots that day. The  outlying hospitals could only send a few people and I've lost track of how they are going to get vaccine to others there. EMS showed up both days 2 and 3.

All of this is only a problem in that you have to fill out several forms, get your shot, then be observed for at least 15 minutes for reactions and stay 6 feet apart for all of this. They took the large meeting space and put in multiple stations to get people registered, consented, vaccinated, observed, and get their card for the return shot and double check all the paperwork. It took about 30 minutes by Day 3.

They originally scheduled for 75 vaccinations a day over 6  days, but I think they were averaging about 125 per day, especially the first two days.

Overall, I think a large majority of the eligible MDs got vaccinated and nursing staff was running 40-50 %. Because of all the scheduling and observations and paperwork, they did not even try to cover night shift until the second week.

I think originally we were supposed to get an almost equal amount of Moderna, but Ive been off for the holiday and I haven't heard. Given the challenges in thawing, diluting and preparing the Pfizer vaccine without wasting any - no one wants to waste any - I think the hospitals with storage capacity will be the only places to get any significant orders of Pfizer in my state, and they may well have diverted all the Moderna to other places, at least that's what I would do if I was them. Last numbers I saw was roughly 128K doses sent to Al and only 25K dispensed - lots of reasons, reluctance to take the vaccine, lots of Covid and they aren't vaccinating within 90 days of diagnosis, pregnancy, severe allergies, etc. The holidays also have really slowed things down.

Next challenge, seems that your second exposure to the antigens have a fairly high likelihood of making you feel bad, so work teams have to split up just in case. My partner had Covid back in the summer, his first shot made him feel bad for about 12 hours, no fever, didn't miss work, just took Advil, but noticed that something was different. No severe allergic reactions here, allergic people are supposed to be observed for 30 minutes, not just 15.

Probably more than you wanted to know. What's that old military saying about the plan holding up when you encounter the enemy?

Thank you.  This was very informative!

[drarill]

On 12/30/2020 at 9:49 AM, TeeRick said:

It certainly is an interesting strategy to use only one dose of the AZ/Oxford vaccine in the UK and at least partially protect as many people as possible.  This was not part of the clinical trial protocol.  But I understand it.  For this particular vaccine, the manufacturing and distribution is easier so I think they are counting on that to happen pretty quickly and produce a very large number of doses.  If so, the second booster dose will come within a reasonable time.  But yikes! no efficacy or safety data to support this strategy so it will make a lot of experts uncomfortable to say the least.    

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/europe/uk-covid-19-vaccine-oxford-astrazeneca.html

found this in Twitter...  

 

[TeeRick]

1 hour ago, drarill said:

found this in Twitter...  

 

Very interesting comment and understandable from her perspective.  Maybe all the initial vaccine recipients in the UK should get the second dose as promised in the time frame promised.  Then they go to the one dose strategy next.  After a lot of education and communication.  That might help the buy in and dissipate some of the mistrust. 

[Doubt It]

21 hours ago, phoenix_dream said:

I know we can analyze this to death and there is certainly no perfect answer, and logical reasons for a variety of approaches.  Did want to comment on one thing, cuz I guess I can't help myself🙂.  If we focus on vaccinating the most vulnerable (i.e., the 60+ year old working at the grocery store), then the issue of the virus spreading by the 20 year old to them is basically eliminated.  And I suspect you didn't mean anything against me by implying I said that a 20 year old grocery store clerk wasn't "deserving" of a vaccine.  Just to get my opinion on the record, I think everyone is deserving of a vaccine.  It is just a matter of what is the most practical priority of the doses that we have.

 

The more I think about this (and I think I need to start thinking about it less!), it seems like we had one of two top priorities - either prevent deaths, or keep the economy from crashing even more.  It seems to me that by and large we chose door #2.  One could argue against that and say that we are did choose option #1 by vaccinating long term care facilities in the first phase.  My cynical mind says that one is more about the optics.  All the news channels as well as statistics repeatedly (and rightly) identified those places as the places with the most deaths.  But if we really, truly, were working to prevent deaths as the top priority, the next phase would be those 60+ and those with serious health conditions.  That is unfortunately not the case.

 

phoenix_dream, Support your assessment 100%, thank you for posting.

The vaccine distribution does seem willy nilly in terms of any consistency from location to location.

 

For example, my 93 year old father is in a retirement home, I guess he will eventually get the vaccine. I however, just got an email from the retirement home saying I can get the vaccine asap as I visit my father. Not sure I am pleased with putting me first. 

 

I support as #1 priority the elderly and immune compromised before any one else. Not seeing this happening.

[TeeRick]

4 minutes ago, Doubt It said:

 

phoenix_dream, Support your assessment 100%, thank you for posting.

The vaccine distribution does seem willy nilly in terms of any consistency from location to location.

 

For example, my 93 year old father is in a retirement home, I guess he will eventually get the vaccine. I however, just got an email from the retirement home saying I can get the vaccine asap as I visit my father. Not sure I am pleased with putting me first. 

 

I support as #1 priority the elderly and immune compromised before any one else. Not seeing this happening.

Do the provinces in Canada make the vaccine priority rules or is it the central government?  In the US it is the individual states.  It would be great if our federal government (CDC and or HHS) just set the priorities over the states.  Then everybody would be treated equally and know the rules.  But that will never happen here.  Even with a new administration coming in 3 weeks.

[Doubt It]

Greetings TeeRick:

It appears it is the provinces, ie the same approach as in the states.

The approach here in BC is different than for my sister who lives in Ontario. 

The other thing is that there has been no official statement from the provincial government as to the distribution priority list - ie no open and transparent communication. We learn things via the media and FB and Twitter posts. 

Not good at all. I am not impressed.

[Crazy planning mom]

22 hours ago, D C said:

Agreed!  

The 20 year old isn't undeserving, they're just undeserving of a priority spot at the front of the line.

The media has loved counting cases through this pandemic, far more than counting deaths, it seems.  Sadly, I think you're correct in that preventing deaths is not at the top of the list of goals to achieve with the vaccine.  

The only problem is that it's the 20 year olds that are going out and partying maskless and then spreading it to their 50 year old parents.

[TeeRick]

16 minutes ago, Crazy planning mom said:

The only problem is that it's the 20 year olds that are going out and partying maskless and then spreading it to their 50 year old parents.

Yes this maskless partying happens a lot for sure.  The media loves to show it.   I am not disagreeing with you at all.   But it is also a stereotype.  There is another side to every issue. Not all young people do this partying and many are very responsible and careful.  And they understand the risks to their parents and grandparents.  I have nieces and nephews in this age group and in colleges.  Some are working outside their homes in jobs with risk of exposure.  To earn money and qualify for health insurance.  Same for my son and daughter in their early 30's.  They need to work and their jobs require travel too.  In the US there is very little job protection, minimal unemployment benefits and no universal health insurance.  What are most of these kids to do really?  So I have not seen my nieces and nephews for about a year.  And now rarely get visits from my kids.  They get virus-tested after they travel.  And will not put us at risk until they get a negative test.  All we do as retired people with health insurance and retirement income is stay home.  They do not have this easy choice.  Hoping 2021 turns the corner!

[D C]

45 minutes ago, Crazy planning mom said:

The only problem is that it's the 20 year olds that are going out and partying maskless and then spreading it to their 50 year old parents.

Vaccinating the 20 year olds won't help that situation, and may make it far worse if the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission.     Nothing like giving a 20 year old an invincibility shot to boost their confidence that they won't get sick, while cloaking the presence of the virus if they do come into contact with it. 

[D C]

22 hours ago, UnorigionalName said:

 

Of course it's not trouble free.  No one is saying it's trouble free.

 

But it's an enviable situation for millions of young people.  It's a tradeoff a lot of young people would like to have right now.  Having economic security.  Not having to deal with crazy customers that don't follow guidelines and put everyone's health at risk.

 

The goal of the distribution of vaccines is to be morally fair.  Fair to everyone.  Fair to older people.  Fair to younger people.  

 

Young essential workers do not have the choice.  They have to work.

 

Retired people do have a choice.  They have the choice to stay home.  That's why they are lower in the queue.

 

Again, you are basically asking young people to sacrifice their health and their lives, so you can go meet up with friends and go cruise.

 

And you don't understand why there's not a huge segment of the population that would be outraged at this complete lack of empathy?

 

Basically why everyone called the baby boomers the "me generation"

 

I'm not a baby boomer and would rather they receive vaccines first.  Does that make me part of the 'them generation'?   In fact, nobody in my family would prioritize themselves for vaccination ahead of our older generation.

 

Wouldn't the concept of being 'morally fair' mean balancing vaccination with who is at most risk of death?  The infection fatality rate for 20 year olds is ~0.01% with mild to moderate illness being most common.  That's a 99.99% survival rate if infected.  Being sick and off work for a week or two is hardly a fatal blow to their economic security.   For seniors that infection fatality rate is up to 1500x greater than for the 20 year old.  Plus, we see examples in the news regularly of seniors who took every precaution and still ended up contracting the virus and dying.  Divert their vaccines to the 20-somethings and there will be preventable deaths. 

 

Now if you said we're going to mix the 20-somethings with severe risk factors in with the older folks, it would make sense.  

[Ken the cruiser]

Happy New Year everyone!!! I'm noticing an interesting development starting to happen down here in the South where we live. The Florida governor and now the Georgia governor have added folks 65 and older to the top priority list for getting the vaccine. It will be interesting to see if and when other governors start to move in this direction. 

 

Florida: https://www.wflx.com/2020/12/23/floridians-older-can-receive-covid-vaccine-next-governor-says-6/

 

Georgia: https://www.wtxl.com/news/coronavirus/gov-kemp-expands-eligible-priority-covid-19-vaccine-recipients

 

[phoenix_dream]

On 12/31/2020 at 10:16 AM, UnorigionalName said:

 

The difference is that retired people have the option of JUST FREAKING STAYING HOME and there is like no risk.

 

Young people need to work because 1) there are ESSENTIALS like food that need to happen. and 2) they don't have 40 years worth of savings to live off of, and they too want to retire at some point in their lives, though young people are more and more resigned to never being able to retire.

 

Basically, you are asking younger people who do not have the choice, to continue to work and continue to get sick and possibly die or more likely have a lifetime of consequences, just so you don't have to stay at home and can go cruise.

 

Basically, all the risk retired people have are of their own making.  Other than like nursing homes, which, as you may have noticed, is also in the first group.

First of all, we do not always have the option of just staying home (and thanks for shouting at me with caps - that always helps).  Older people often must visit doctors, dentists, physical therapists, etc..  If they catch the virus on one of those very necessary outings, they are 90% more likely to die or be hospitalized.  How would you like to be in the group 90% more likely to die or be hospitalized?!?  I suspect you would not and would want a vaccine ASAP.  And for the record, not all people over 60 are retired.  Many are still working, at least part-time because they don't all have a big bank account no matter how long they have been working,  In addition (and I could just go on and on) many seniors, especially in lower income communities, live with their younger family members.  They are at serious risk of catching the virus from their family, which has been shown to be the biggest transmitter of the virus.  And many seniors are living in small, one bedroom condos or apartments.  Can you imagine for a minute what it would be like to stare at just those few walls for well over a year, going nowhere except doctors/dentists?  What does that do to a persons physical or mental health??

 

I also take offence to your statement that we want the vaccine so we don't have to stay home and can go cruise.  No, we want the vaccine so our 90% higher chance of being hospitalized or dying doesn't happen!  Being able to go out and cruise is just a side benefit.  But there is truth that we want to go out - as well as be able to see our children and other family for the first time in over a year.  Unlike much younger people, we don't have our whole lives ahead of us.  Many more of us than younger people have underlying health conditions.  We don't know how many years we have left.  

 

I respect those who have legitimate differences of opinions than mine.  There are many ways this distribution could be handled, all of which have some logic behind them.  I do not appreciate people who shout at me, or accuse me of being as cold and callus as you have done with your post.

 

[Fouremco]

On a humorous note:

 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/12/30/coronavirus-vaxxies-are-the-new-selfies-moos-vpx.cnn

[TeeRick]

34 minutes ago, Fouremco said:

On a humorous note:

 

https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2020/12/30/coronavirus-vaxxies-are-the-new-selfies-moos-vpx.cnn

Thank you.  A great story!